The Garden District Farmer's Market is a quaint, little grocery shopping experience that started up only last year. It inhabits its own little corner of the south side from 1 - 5 pm in the shadow of the Town of Lake Water Tower and the locally-grown deliciousness of Tower Chicken. It's just down the street from where I live. Why write about it here? Well . . . this past Saturday, the Market played host to Kohl's WIld Theater. My two year-old daughter may be a little young to gain a full appreciation of the eco-educational show, but it's always fun to watch a KWT show, so my little family and I took-in the double feature of The Strange Case of Alien Invasion and The Legend of Hibernacula.
Developed by Kohl's Cares, the Milwaukee County Zoo, and the Zoological Society of Milwaukee, Kohl's Wild Theater is educational theatre for kids which primarily resides at the Milwaukee County Zoo in the warmer months. In the off-season the Wild Theatre makes the rounds to schools, libraries and other locations. It was nice to see them performing for the kids at the farmer's market.
The on-location performance features props, costuming and amplification. Three performers hop out of a van and set everything up prior to the show. Then they perform for roughly an hour. They then strike everything, pop it all back into the van and leave. It's a very, very well-orchestrated road show. The three making it to the Farmer's Market yesterday were James Carrington, David Franz and Megan Kaminsky.
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The writing for Kohl's Wild Theatre is really, really excellent kid's stuff . . . far better than one might expect from traditional children's fare. Local playwrights who have written for the program include Kelly Doherty and Neil Haven. The double feature performed yesterday had been entirely written by Melanie Wehrmacher.
The Strange Case of Alien Invasion--David Franz had a slick style about him as Detective Appletree--gumshoe private eye on a vacation in Wisconsin. He runs into some of the local wildlife including a couple of fish of a very specific species with very distinctive personalities. (Kaminsky's fish had a particularly large vocabulary. Carringrton's fish was a bit more casual, politely asking for a hook to be taken out of hism outh as an afterthought.) They spoke of aliens--invasive species and the importance of keeping earthworms and zebra mussels in their proper places. Typical of WIld Theatre scripts, Wehrmacher's work here has a little something for every age group, including more sophisticated bits aimed at parents. It's a remarkable balance.
The Bachelor-Pette--An interstitial sketch between the two main features, this bit had Carrington as a host for a game show based on a certain popular reality TV show. Kaminsky was charming as the type of woman you might find on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. (Believe me--there's only really on type. The producers at ABC wouldn't want any real diversity in there.) Anyway--she goes out on three different "dates" with three different pets to decide which one will "get the rose" so to speak: a boa constrictor, a parrot or a cat. Kind of a clever way to discuss the different issues and responsibilities not only of different types of pets but of different types of animals in general.
The Legend of Hibernacula--a musical short with work by composer John Tanner, this is a piece about bats. Carrington was exceedingly likable as a misunderstood creature who is eager to let everyone know about how cool bats really are. Not the nasty little demons of the night sky everyone has a tendency to think of them as. David Franz did his best Bela Lugosi as a vampire bat. Kaminsky played a local cow with an adorably exaggerated Wisconsin accent. Kind of a fun look at bats that also edges in on less science-specific territory. It touches on the importance of getting to know those things that you might not like at first and finding out what they're really like before passing judgment. Important stuff for basic adaptability which is kind of important four our continued survival as a society.
Though the Kohl's WIld Theater is finished performing at the zoo for the year, there are numerous performances in and around Southeastern Wisconsin. For a complete list of upcoming performances through the non-Zoo season, visit Kohl's Wild Theater online.
